Nobody laughed. If McGeachin hadn't been top management--really top management--Mr. Replogle knew, he would have been torn to pieces. But top management was boss; it was government; it was divine right. Nobody did anything. "If the machine can replace man," Orville suggested, "why can't man replace the machine? Plenty of room for both.... Did I say something wrong?" he added, seeing the expressions on the human faces that surrounded him. "You're just ahead of your time, boy." McGeachin clapped him on the shoulder. "But you're right. Why can't man co-exist with the machine? Why can't robots paint pictures and write books and compose operas, while people work in the factories? Don't know just yet how it'll work out in the factories, but it'll be a great day for art!" "We're going to have to give the money back," Mr. Replogle said dully. "What money?" McGeachin asked, obviously annoyed by this anticlimactic remark. "The money paid for Orville's pictures. We cheated the buyers--unwittingly, it is true, but we cheated them nonetheless. We sold the pictures as hand-mades. They're machined." "But I have hands," Orville protested. Mr. Ditmars shook his head. "You're a machine. Replogle is right. Cimabue is ruined." "I'll make good your losses," McGeachin said in his crisp, metallic voice, and just then Mr. Replogle knew what had been bothering him all along about the financier. Despite his completely hand-made costume McGeachin looked exactly like a robot. The triumph of environment over heredity--or was it as simple as that, Mr. Replogle wondered. Everyone knew who Hervey McGeachin's father was, but who had his mother been? "No one can make good our losses," Mr. Ditmars told him. "Modern art has suffered a crushing blow from which it will never recover. The handwriting is on the wall." "You mean the typewriting," Mr. Replogle said.